Albanians

What was obviously the forefront of everybody's mind was what would Croatia's treatment of minorities be? You know, Tudor might finesse that very well.

Sipirovic openly stated that the Zagreb government, the Tudor government, they'd have absolutely no problem with you know an open hearing at uh the hague conference that was then looming for the winter time where participating representatives of you know all of the of you know the three ethnic groups you know croatia servant bosniak you could you know get some declaration of rights um from this agra government that would be guaranteed by you know like u.n observers or whatever like upon cessation of hostilities um you know, uh, the true problem, the truth born on the side of the Serbs became the Albanians in Kosovo.

Um, but that's, we're not there yet, but, um, the point is like, at least more than superficially, the Croats said like, look, we'll, we'd be willing to accept some international controls in terms of settlement of the Serbian minority.

And we'll definitely allow observers on the ground.

Right.

How has all of this affected relationships with the largest minority population in the country, the Albanians, and the main Albanian parties, which have been working together with the leading ruling parties for quite some time?

There has been quite some movement in the ethnic Albanian political party camp.

So DUI, although they won, they won more seats in parliament than the Albanian opposition, they were left in opposition by Vamero Dopamene.

When SDSM has left a lot of space for Ali Ahmeti and his confidence to sort of be involved in much... more important decision-making than now.

Now there is this impression that the ethnic Albanian partnering government is kind of more shy, more timid, more sort of controlled.

And again, this is all positive for the Vomero voter base because there is this impression that, you know, now finally the Albanians know their

place.

sort of landscape of goat herders and errant mules and sort of unyoked oxen trotting all over this sort of salt dune like landscape, like something out of a science fiction by the British writer J.G. Ballard, you know, a very strange abandoned place with an airport in the middle of it.

So the Albanians are very cross about that as well.

Yes.

And a magnesium blue sky under a magnesium blue sky, as I remember you put it.

And it's particularly interesting for, I suppose, me as a Brit reading about it, because we know about Albania a little bit in Britain, because in the last five, 10 years, we've had quite a large influx of immigration from Albania.

And it's very connected to criminal activity.

There's a large number of Albanians in British jails.

This is not to cast aspersions on Albanians at all.

We know where this ends, right? That this can just lead to increasingly brutal restrictions and crackdown against independent voices.

But as far as I know, the Albanians are still turning out week after week.

So this is, I guess, a positive and definitely solidarity because, again, we see this similar story of breaking down corruption and environmental concerns and really bringing people out to the streets in response.

Yeah, and I think these kind of events, at least they do shape the civil societies in some way, and this kind of civil thinking will maybe have a longer-term effect on the situation, I hope, in Albania.

She was in Zoya, New York.

My wife Zoya was in Kosovo for a wedding with all the Albanians.

And then she came back from that and I was going to New York for two weeks.

So we didn't see each other straight up for a month.

mike who on the team speaks croatian

I don't know, because we've got a Serbian player in Djordjevic, we've got a Polish player in Semeslav Poheta, we've got Albanians with Mirtuzuni.

Who in this photo set is the most likely to speak and or understand Croatian or possibly Serbian? It might be Serbian.

Yes, I was going to say, potentially, it would be Djordjevic.

It'll become particularly relevant as we get into Operation Storm and kind of like how that developed and there's the planning and execution as well as, you know, kind of the order of battle for the rubber at the road.

But, you know, the... what was um obviously the forefront of everybody's mind was what would croatia's treatment of minorities be um you know uh to do and finesse that very well um separovic openly stated that uh there that the zagreb government the judgment government they have actually no problem with you know an open hearing at uh the hague conference that was then looming for the winter time where participating representatives of you know all of of you know the three ethnic groups you know croatia servant bosniak you could you know get some declaration of rights um from this government that would be guaranteed by you know like you had observers or whatever like upon cessation of hostilities um You know, the true problem, the truth on the side of the Serbs became the Albanians in Kosovo.

But that's, we're not there yet.

But the point is, like, at least more than superficially, the Croats said, like, look, we'd be willing to accept some international controls in terms of settlement of the Serbian minority.

I saw it was Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner had purchased land in Albania.

And the Albanians found out that this was a very, you know, it's an island, a very precious piece of property for them.

They took over.

They ripped everything to shreds.